National Council of State Housing Agencies
444 North Capitol Street, NW, Suite 438
Washington, DC 20001
Media Advisory
Contact:
Date:
Julie Adams or Garth Rieman, 202/624-7710
May 30, 2002
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Millennial Housing Commission Supports NCSHA’s Highest Legislative Priorities,
Expanded State Role in Delivery of Federal Housing Assistance
The National Council of State Housing Agencies (NCSHA) applauded the Millennial Housing
Commission upon the release of its highly anticipated report on the federal government’s response to the
nation’s affordable housing needs. The report affirms the essential role states play in meeting affordable
housing challenges and recommends several new initiatives that would expand the states’ role in
delivering federal housing help.
“The Millennial Housing Commission’s report is a bold blueprint for building a more effective
national affordable housing policy,” said Claira Monier, NCSHA president and executive director of the
New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority. “I’m especially pleased that the Commission has endorsed
many of the important housing proposals NCSHA currently is advocating on Capitol Hill.”
Among the report’s principal recommendations are three of NCSHA’s most urgent legislative
priorities: Mortgage Revenue Bond (MRB) Ten-Year Rule repeal; MRB purchase price reform; and
increased state flexibility to develop Low Income Housing Tax Credit (Housing Credit) properties in very
low income, predominantly rural, areas.
NCSHA is spearheading an aggressive national campaign to convince Congress to enact the
Housing Bond and Credit Modernization and Fairness Act of 2001 (H.R. 951/S. 677), which contains
these critical changes to MRBs and the Housing Credit, recognized by the Commission as very effective
federal housing programs. Seventy-one percent of the Congress has cosponsored this legislation, 27
governors have written Congress or the President to urge its enactment, and nearly every major housing,
public finance, and state and local government organization has backed its passage.
Barbara J. Thompson, NCSHA executive director, thanked the Commission for its “powerful
endorsement,” saying that it “could help prevent the irrecoverable loss of billions of dollars in low-cost
mortgage money for lower income families and tens of thousands of affordable ownership and rental
opportunities by helping to persuade Congress to enact these provisions in a larger tax bill this year.”
The report recommends several other NCSHA priorities, including: new, state-administered
rental production resources; substantially increased HOME funding, HOME and Housing Credit
program simplifications, a new, state-administered homeownership tax credit; and increased devolution
of federal housing program administration to the states. It also suggests several other new initiatives,
such as a state-administered preservation tax credit, that build on the proven state housing delivery
system.
“This report will make an enormous contribution to the effort already under way in Congress to
make sure the resources the federal government is committing to affordable housing are delivered as
effectively as possible and are sufficient to meet the need,” Thompson said. “The report’s themes of
deregulation and devolution of existing programs and creation of new tools to augment and leverage
existing resources should resonate with Congress and lead to significant improvements in our national
(more)
housing policy.
Now we need to make sure Congress hears and acts on these important
recommendations.”
Congress created the Commission in 1999 to review federal housing policy and programs and
recommend ways in which they could be strengthened to better address the nation’s growing affordable
housing needs.
NCSHA is a national, nonprofit organization created by the nation’s state housing finance
agencies to assist them in increasing housing opportunities for lower income and underserved people
through the financing, development, and preservation of affordable housing.
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The Commission’s report is available at www.mhc.gov.